Newbie here looking for recommendations

[jaydub]

Hello all,

I'm the epitome of gen-x breaking into tech with practically zero experience. I want to utilize servicenow to learn and get certified, but I'm not sure which career path is best for me. I am a former firefighter and currently a professional home inspector. I enjoy analyzing and problem solving. Is SysAdmin the way to go? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[lpruit2]

Greetings @jaydub. Welcome to ServiceNow Community and congratulations on your journey. Always interested in hearing others' opinions but I would highly recommend checking out ServiceNow University. They have a lot of free on-demand courses that you can take that will help a lot with whatever certification path you choose. They also have helpful knowledge articles that detail the differences between the available "paths" that you can pursue. In my humble opinion, I would start with a ServiceNow Certified System Administrator (CSA) course. Then, if you're interested in learning scripting, I would move on to the ServiceNow Certified Application Developer (CAD) courses. After you have these two certifications under your belt, the sky is the limit. You can then focus on any of the specific modules within ServiceNow that you are interested in: Event Management, IT Service Management (ITSM), Human Resources (HRSC), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC), etc. 

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[jennifermetz1]

Hello @jaydub,

Welcome to the ServiceNow Community.

I would definitely recommend starting with a CSA path as it really does a great job of giving you a good breadth of the platform and it's capabilities. This is where I started and eventually opened the door to more advanced development opportunities.

A system administrator is a very common entry point, so don't think of it as a single destination.  Admin experience gets you comfortable with troubleshooting, security, configurations, and overall platform support. From there you can naturally grow into other roles like a developer, architect, project manager, or business analyst.

ServiceNow has done a great job curating career journeys over on ServiceNow University. This should give you an idea of what options are out there and what the average salaries look like. Towards the bottom of the page they even have an assessment tool that will ask you a few questions to help you decide on the right path.

I wanted to highlight the rise up program as well since you are just starting your journey. This is a free talent incubator run by ServiceNow. You can find more details and apply here. 

If you haven't already, I highly recommend heading over to the developer portal and spinning up a PDI. They have a few learning plans if you just want to dip your toes in and take a look around. As you study, this is the best tool hands down to really practice and solidify your skills.

Good luck on your journey!